Symptoms of Infectious Rhinitis in Rabbits
📝 Summary
The clearest sign of infectious rhinitis is constant sneezing, later with thick, pus-like nasal discharge. Left untreated it can advance to pneumonia and death, so don't mistake ordinary dust-sneezing for the disease — especially if it only happens at mealtimes.
1 Symptoms
The signs of infectious rhinitis are very obvious. During infection the fur around the nose stays damp, and as sneezing continues, purulent discharge appears in the nasal passages — at first thin, watery mucus that thickens into pus as the disease progresses.
1. Infected rabbits sneeze constantly from the inflamed nose. Early on sneezing is infrequent, but as it worsens the fits grow more frequent and turn into continuous sneezing; in a quiet hutch you can hear sneezes from all directions. Importantly, sneezing sprays pathogens into the air and can infect the whole group.
2. Breathing is rapid and laboured with loud, coarse breath sounds, especially during the midday heat — and infected rabbits are more prone to heat-stroke death than healthy ones.
3. Kits have low recovery and survival rates; they grow slowly and become ‘stunted’. Without timely treatment the disease worsens into pneumonia or empyema, with difficult breathing, bluish mucous membranes, lost appetite and rapid wasting or sudden death.
Don’t mistake simple sneezing for rhinitis. If a rabbit sneezes only while eating, it’s probably just dust in the nose, not disease — sift the dust from its feed.
Tip: caught early, rhinitis is very treatable; miss the window and the consequences can be irreversible. Prevention through strict husbandry is best.
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